Paying bills is a time-consuming, and frequent process. The advent of application software for bill payment on the front-end, and of payment processing systems on the back-end, has automated the bill payment process. Generally, the bill payment software provides a user interface for entering account and payment information, and setting up periodic payment instructions. As a result, and in some cases without further user input, the payment software automatically submits the payment instructions to the payment processing system. In turn, the processing system submits payments via the Automated Clearing House, or ACH, network which provides interbank regulations and clearing of batched payments.
Although seamless to the user, the bill payment process typically requires coordination between the bill payment software and the payment processing system, over a period of time. More particularly, the bill payment software submits payment transactions to the payment processing system, either directly, or through an intermediary, such as the user's bank. The payment processing system draws funds (e.g., via the ACH) from a funding source for disbursement of funds to the payee (e.g., by check or electronic transfer). After the payment has been sent to the payee, a confirmation is sent from the payment processing system to the bill payment software.
One problem with maintaining bill payments that are seamless to a user occurs when changing from an existing payment processing service to a different one. Today, a user changing bill payment software faces the task of manually deleting and recreating payment information. Where there is a change in the payment processing system, either directly or by an intermediary, a user may lose information related to bill payments in progress. For this reason, a one time copy of payees and payment instructions from a first payment processing system to the second payment processing system is ineffectual.